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HILLHOUSE'S ORATION, 



IN 






COMMEMORATION 



OF 



LAFAYETTE. 



<3J 



AN 






ORATION, 

Pronounce* at Jiefo f^afoen, 




BY REQUEST OF 



THE COMMON COUNCIL, 



AUGUST 19, 1834, 



IN COMMEMORATION OF THE LIFE AND SERVICES 



OF 



GENERAL LAFAYETTE 



BY JAMES A. HILLHOUSE. 



NEW HAVEN: 

PUBLISHED BY H. HOWE & CO. 
1834. 



^ 









New Haven, Sept. Zd, 1834. 
Dear Sir — I have the pleasure of communicating to you the following 
resolutions: — 

" At a court of Common Council of the city of New Haven, held on the 
2d day of Sept. 1834— 

" Voted, That this court tender their acknowledgments to James A. Hill- 
house, Esq., for the eloquent Address delivered by him in commemoration 
of the life and services of Gen. Lafayette, on the day before Commence- 
ment, by appointment of this board. 

" Voted, That the Mayor be a committee to request from him a copy of 
the Address, for publication. 

" Voted, That the committee who were appointed to address the family 
of Gen. Lafayette in behalf of the city authorities, be requested to transmit 
to them, in the name of the Common Council, copies of Mr. Hillhouse's Ad- 
dress, when published. Certified by Elisha Munson, City Clerk." 

Allow me to add my individual solicitation, that your Address be given 
to the public. With great respect, your obedient servant, 

Henry C. Flagg, Mayor. 
James A. Hillhonse, Esq. 



Yale College, Aug. 20, 1834. 
By appointment of the Phi Beta Kappa, we have the honor to offer to 
you, in their behalf, the thanks of the Society for your Oration of the 19th 
inst., and to request a copy for publication. 

Respectfully, your obedient friends, 

Denison Olmsted. 
" *. : R. S. Baldwin. 

James A. Hillhouse, Esq. A. N. Skinner. 



Jssi 



The idea of substantiating by notes several of the following 
statements, suggested itself. But ampler and abler illustra- 
tions of this great and good man's life, will doubtless soon 
be before the public. It is a subject worthy of elevated 
genius ; and one on which certain arrogant writers require 
refutation and rebuke. I am not conscious of having com- 
promised the literal truth, by a single assertion, phrase, or 
epithet, in these pages. Authorities can be cited not only for 
every fact, but in justification of the moral importance at- 
tached to the facts. The substance of one remark, that 
namely, on page 13, relative to the "extent" of our obli- 
gations to Lafayette, I recently received from an intelligent 
friend, and believe to be entitled to entire credit. 
Highwood, Sept. 5th, 1834. 



ORATION 



Fellow Citizens, and 

Gentlemen of the Phi Beta Kappa : 

To interpret the characters of illustrious men is one of the 
critical offices of history. Insufficient, or conflicting testimony, 
and the deceptive lights of prejudice and passion, render it, 
often, a task of painful scrutiny. But, from time to time, exam- 
ples of public virtue occur, clear, unequivocal, inexplicable on 
any other than noble principles ; and the convictions and hom- 
age of mankind become universal. Happily, in the present 
instance, we are not called upon to exercise a jealous scepti- 
cism. Wherever the pulse of freedom beats, wherever the 
victims of oppression bleed, the name of Lafayette is pronoun- 
ced with benedictions. 

Let it not seem strange to say, that we are assembled on a 
happy occasion. We are come to indulge emotions sweet and 
salutary, to revive grateful recollections, to number up our ob- 
ligations, and to praise one of the chief Fathers that begat us. 
Nothing connected with it need suggest a painful or reproachful 
thought — we are all equally interested in the benefit and the 
recompense, and we can look on both with unmingled pleasure. 
To-day, there are no distinctions — whether citizens or schol- 
ars — by whatever name distinguished — to whatever sect or 
creed attached, — our hearts must beat in grateful unison. For 
once, our consciences are clean, and our robes are white : — No 
enemy, as we stand about his tomb, can taunt us with ingrati- 
tude to our Benefactor. He is gone ; but honoured as no other 
ever was, he has passed, spotless, through his great ordeal ; 
alway proving himself the pure, simple, consistent friend, and 
ardent advocate, of the rights of his fellow creatures. We 



come up therefore with a solemn joy, to hang our garlands on 
his urn, and to speak of his usefulness and glory. 

When the history of our ancestors is examined, subsequently 
to their arrival on this continent, to say nothing of prior causes, 
it seems to have issued in natural results. We look, without 
surprise, at the stern jealousy of liberty, which became an early 
and striking manifestation of their character. A nation sprung 
from a few scattered religious congregations self-planted in the 
wilderness ; sustained, from the outset, by the sweat of each 
brow, and defended by the valour of each arm, would naturally 
look with microscopic eyes at the minutest infringement of indi- 
vidual right. The common sentiment would be, we have toil- 
ed, fought, sacrificed, hoped, feared, alike — we are therefore 
equal. We abandoned the safeguard of government for civil 
and religious liberty ; we owe our preservation and increase to 
no protector — we are therefore free. These sentiments are the 
obvious result of their peculiar circumstances. When therefore 
foreign cupidity looked toward the harvests which began to 
decorate these fields, and claimed first-fruits of what the Pil- 
grims, alone, had laboured to rear, and suffered to defend, it is 
not strange that the very Genius of the land rose up. The 
Fathers of these States were born, and reared in this spirit : 
They drew in with the breath of life, the breath of liberty. 

But how came Gilbert Motier Lafayette instructed in the 
Freeman's creed ? His young heart was not moulded at the 
fire sides of New England : — he was not born in that old Bay 
State, so fatal, by day and by night, to all presumption ; — the 
untamed blood of Pocahontas mingled not in his veins : — mater- 
nal lips never touched his sympathies by recitals of the hopes, 
fears, faith, and constancy of the little band who gazed from 
the deck of the Mayflower at the receding shores of England, 
and, afterwards, with no stay but God, stepped from the winter 
sea upon the inhospitable rock of Plymouth : — the pains of non- 
conformity had never driven him or his fathers to scrutinize the 
foundations of authority: — he did not learn the doctrine of 
Equal Rights in the Text Book of the Pilgrims, When the 



future Patriots of the revolution were following their fathers to 
the harvest field, young Lafayette was surrounded with attend- 
ance and observance as the precious orphan of a noble house in 
an old and ceremonious monarchy. While they were learning 
at the school-house, and meeting-house, the duties of freemen, 
and Puritans, he was acquiring the accomplishments of a preux 
chevalier at the college of Louis le Grand, or was imbibing in 
French palaces devotion to beauty and royalty, as the page of 
Marie Antoinette. 

Connected, by historic recollections, with all the haughty as- 
sumption of the feudal day, every illusion of transmitted glory 
and aristocratic pride, seemed to conspire with a generous and 
fearless spirit, to develope in him the character of a gallant 
French Nobleman. Married at seventeen to an heiress of the 
illustrious and powerful house of Noailles, and raised ere nine- 
teen, to the rank of a commissioned officer, he seemed in the 
very morning of life to possess all that nature and fortune can 
bestow. Personal distinction alone was wanting ; and the path 
of honour lay open before him, attended with no other diffi- 
culties than those which make it honourable. 

Surrounded with objects, opinions and observances, calculated 
to dazzle and deceive, with every feudal and French prejudice 
bound thick upon his eyes, by what external illumination, or 
internal impulse, did his youthful mind discover the bearings of 
human rights ? What causes called into life, and nourished the 
embryo of those principles, which at last found vent in the sur- 
prising act of devoting himself to the achievement of American 
Independence ? These questions we cannot answer ; for his 
initiation in the faith seems as independent of the instructions of 
those who were his elders, and subsequently, his brethren, as 
that of Paul himself, who tells us that he " conferred not with 
flesh and blood." 

Suddenly, among the anxious proscribed Patriots, who had 
commenced the great labour of establishing human liberty, ap- 
pears from another hemisphere, a youthful and noble stran- 
ger — not as a pupil, but an equal — ardent as themselves — 



8 

clear-sighted, — well-instructed — resolved to hazard all in their 
despised and doubtful cause ! That resolution — if he had per- 
ished on the sea — if he had fallen by the first shot— ought 
to have made his name sweet in every Freeman's mouth, while 
Freedom shall endure. But it was not suffered to be un- 
fruitful. Its consequences, as developed in our history, are 
great — to France they have been momentous — and they prom- 
ise to be active, and, we fear, needful, for centuries to come. 
For after all that has been done to diffuse the light of free 
institutions, the darkness of middle night hangs over much 
of Europe. Watchful eyes see indeed from the Rhine toward 
the Cimmerian borders, hill-top after hill-top greyly emerge, 
and slowly redden — and they cling to hope; and wisely, for the 
seeds of constitutional liberty are, in fact, beneath the soil of 
many a spot, on whose surface no promise yet appears. The 
American traveller finds the German, yea, the Prussian — 
though haughty and reserved while mistaking him for a Briton — 
if made aware of his errour, start into cordiality. Frankness and 
pleasure beam from his eye — his sympathies quicken — his ques- 
tions become manifold ; and at parting, he asks the honour to 
grasp a freeman's hand. This is no fiction. Few are aware 
how hallowed, and how deep, are their feelings, who worship 
Liberty as a mistress they never may possess. When such is 
the feeling of the People, and with such examples to encourage, 
as now exist, Despotism cannot sit like the Ancient of Days. 
But years must roll on — other battles must be fought — other 
patriots cloven down — Poland rise, perhaps, and sink again, — 
ere that senate house is built in Warsaw, under whose sacred 
porticoes the freemen of distant nations will delight to meet. 

Among all who have laboured in the great cause of man, none 
has acted a more benevolent, consistent and illustrious part, than 
he who left a brilliant destiny in Europe to espouse the wrongs 
of these States. It is impossible to do justice to his actions 
and principles in a brief essay, for the first are connected with 
the protracted changes of a memorable age ; and the latter lie 
at the root of all just government. This is the less to be re- 



9 

grcttetl, as much of his life is a familiar story, and as his princi- 
ples are identical with our own political faith. As if every 
thing conspired to prove his sincere convictions, and his noble 
disinterestedness, the moment of his embracing our cause was 
one of overwhelming gloom. So discouraging did our pros- 
pects seem, (Washington being then on his retreat through 
Jersey, with a handful of defeated followers,) that the Ameri- 
can Commissioners deemed themselves bound in conscience 
and honour to dissuade a highly-connected youth from so un- 
promising an enterprize. His answer to their candid remon- 
stance embodies the spirit of his whole life. " Hitherto," said 
young Lafayette, " I have done no more than wish success to 
your cause. I now go to serve it. The more it has fallen in 
public opinion the greater will be the effect of my departure. 
Since you cannot procure a vessel, I will purchase and fit one 
out at my own expense ; and I will also undertake to transmit 
your despatches to the Congress." — He purchased a vessel, 
eluded his pursuers, embarked, and made a successful winter 
passage over seas beset with British cruisers. He presented 
the despatches of our Commissioners to the American Con- 
gress, and, with them, — made an offer of himself. 

Here, my countrymen, let us pause. — Point me, if you are 
able, to a parallel ; — for my own recollections do not supply 
it. — He was no needy adventurer pushing his fortunes in the 
new world ; — no disgraced profligate seeking to cover his brand- 
ed front with a military chaplet ; — no reckless misanthrope em- 
bittered by disappointment till perils had become grateful ; — he 
was no follower of vulgar glory, no lover of the trade of murder. 
Adorned with talents and virtue, possessor of a princely reve- 
nue, basking in the royal favour, blessed with connubial happi- 
ness, — with hopes thick clustering round his noble head, " as 
blossoms on a bough in May" — he forsook all, came to us from 
beyond the ocean, asked leave to pay his own expenses, and 
fight, as a volunteer, in our naked and barefoot regiments ! 

2 



10 

" We were but warriors for the working day : 
Our gayness and our gilt were all besmirch'd 
With rainy marching in the painful field, 
And time had worn us into slovenry ; 
But, by the mass, our hearts were in the trim." 

What names stand out in history as virtuous heroes, — Patri" 
ots — self devoted ?• — Does Alfred occur to you ? — A prince by 
birth, he was reduced by the invaders of his country to the 
condition of an outlaw — obliged to refuge in dens, and caves, 
while his kingdom was pillaged before his eyes, and portioned 
out by barbarians. His incentive to heroic daring was personal 
degradation, a present foe, aggravated injury, — his recompence, 
his own rescued country and a throne. — Similar wrongs, similar 
incentives nerved the virtuous and valiant heart of Gustavus. 
Himself imprisoned by Christiern, his country enthralled, inju- 
ry on injury heaped on Sweden, — he, at last, broke loose, and 

poured the deluge from the hills of Dalecarlia. Leonidas ! 

Cato ! — Phocion ! — Tell ! One peculiarity marks them all : 
they dared and suffered for their native land. Who else has 
ever gone forth, alone, to a distant shore, to combat for human 
rights in the cause of a weak, despised and unknown people ? — 
The Pilgrim Fathers, the Men of the Revolution must yield, in 
this last touch of disinterestedness, to the Stranger. 

His offer was not declined by Congress : it was accepted in 
words with which we are all familiar. 

A few weeks afterwards he was wounded at Brandywine, 
and his gallantry especially noticed in Washington's despatch. 
We cannot and need not dwell on his ardent and steadfast at- 
tachment to the American cause till peace crowned it with suc- 
cess. You know that he came to us in his own ship, freighted 
with munitions of war which he distributed gratuitously to our 
army ; that he clothed and put shoes on the feet of the naked 
and suffering soldiers ; that he equipped and armed a regiment 
at his own expense ; — that he not only received no pay, but 
expended in our service between the years '77 and '83, seven 
hundred thousand francs.* He was ever ready to expose him- 

* Hayne's Speech. 



11 

self. General Greene says : " He is determined to be in the 
way of danger." He participated in the hardships of the troops, 
and felt for their mortifications with a brother's tenderness. 
Listen to his language. 

After his return from France in '80, where he had success- 
fully used his influence with the French Court to procure suc- 
cours ; and had announced to Congress that a strong armament 
would soon follow him ; he writes thus to Samuel Adams ; 
pressing for the troops and supplies promised by Congress to 
co-operate with the French. " All Europe, my dear sir, have 
their eyes upon us ; they know nothing of us but by our own 
reports and our first exertions, which heightened their esteem ; — 
and by the accounts of the enemy, and dissatisfied persons 
which were calculated to give a very different opinion ; — so that 
to fix their own minds all the nations are now looking at us ; 
and the consequence of America in the eyes of the world, as 
well as its liberty and happiness depend on the following cam- 
paign. The succour sent by France I thought to be very im- 
portant, when at Versailles ; and now that I am on the spot, I 
know it was highly necessary ; and if proper measures are taken, 
I shall more heartily than ever enjoy the happiness I had of 
being somewhat concerned in the Operation. But if things 
stood as they now do, I confess whether as an American soldier, 
or as a private man, who has said much, and knows Congress 
have ordered much more to be said, on the future exertions of 
America; and who took particular delight in praising the patri- 
otic spirit of the United States, I should feel most unhappy and 
distressed, were I compelled to tell the people who are coming, 
full of ardour and sanguine hopes, that we have no army to 
co-operate with them ; and no provisions to feed the few sol- 
diers that are left. But I hope, my dear sir, it will not be the 
case ; and, more particularly depending on the exertions of 
your State, I know Mr. Samuel Adams' influence and popular- 
ity will be, as heretofore, employed in the salvation and glory 
of America. If proper measures are taken for provisions ; if 
the States do immediately fill up the continental battalions by 



12 

good drafts, which is by far the best way ; if all the propositions 
of the Committee are speedily complied with ; I have no doubt 
that the present campaign will be a glorious and decisive one." — 
" Give me leave, my dear sir, to suggest to you one idea. All 
the Continental officers labour under the most shameful want 
of clothing. When I say shameful, it is not to them, who have 
no money to buy — and no cloth easily to be bought. — But you 
may conceive what will be their, and our feelings when they 
shall be with the French general and other officers. And from 
a general idea of mankind, and human honour, it is apparent 
how much we should exert ourselves to put the officers and 
army in more decent clothing." — Whose language is this? who 
talks thus to Samuel Adams ? — Who appeals in this strain to 
Massachusetts ? — From Washington, on whom rested the re- 
sponsibility of the war, it might not seem remarkable. 

Adams replies : " Gratitude to so generous an ally, as well as 
due attention to our own safety, interest, and honour, lay us un- 
der the strongest obligations to be in readiness to co-operate 
with the greatest advantage. I have long been fully sensible 
of your most cordial and zealous attachment to our great cause. 
If it were possible to be forgetful of it, for a moment, my par- 
ticular friendship for you would be a prevailing inducement to 
make my utmost feeble exertions to prevent your disappoint- 
ment after the great pains you have taken to serve us. I think 
I may venture to predict that this state will comply with the 
requisition upon her to give the utmost respectability to our ar- 
my on so promising an occasion. I was in the council chamber 
when I received your letter, and I took the liberty to read some 
parts of it to the members present ; and I shall communicate 
other parts as prudence may dictate." — The letter of a young 
Frenchman read to the Representatives of revolutionary Mas- 
sachusetts to stimulate them to their duty ! — This sample is 
enough. 

In this spirit he wrote, fought, and negotiated from the first 
moment he set his foot on our shores till the termination of the 
war. His courage, prudence, generosity and devotedness, — and 



13 

his single-minded love of Washington, are attested hy all the 
chief actors in the Revolution — they are matters of history — 
they need not be dwelt upon — they are engraven on our hearts. 
But we would hazard one remark, namely, that this people are 
yet to learn the extent of their obligations to Lafayette. Doc- 
uments are believed to exist, which show his influence to have 
been decisive of the policy of the French Court; and in re- 
gard to the expedition of Rochambeau, to have been the sole 
cause of that most important aid. He was in fact our able and 
zealous Minister, as well as our Major General. 

We must pass on to other periods less minutely known, per- 
haps, among ourselves, but not less essential to a just apprecia- 
tion of his character ; the remarkable features of which it is our 
aim to make apparent rather than to present a complete bio- 
graphical sketch. 

Two months after the crowning stroke of the war, the sur- 
render of Yorktown, where by the orders of Washington he 
carried a redoubt at the point of the bayonet, Lafayette return- 
ed to his native country. Most honourable testimonials were 
entrusted to him, not simply of the deep gratitude of Congress, 
but of their entire confidence in his wisdom; and positive in- 
structions were transmitted to our Ministers in Paris to confer 
with him on all our important interests, and " avail themselves 
of his information relative to the situation of public affairs in 
the United States." Important they truly were ; for the pre- 
liminaries of peace were yet to be adjusted and our Independ- 
ence to be recognized. By the French Court and capital he 
was received with proud distinction ; Voltaire at the zenith of 
his glory pronounced his plaudit ; the Queen bestowed the ap- 
propriate reward of chivalrous deeds — her own angelic resem- 
blance; — and the People actually drove him from Paris by 
their fetes and ovations. An incident in one of his interviews 
with the King illustrates character. After being deeply in- 
terested in a long account of the chances of our fluctuating af- 
fairs, Louis suddenly asked Lafayette : " But where were you 
all this while ?" 



14 

In the interval between his return to France in '81, (of which 
we are now speaking,) and the commencement of the Revolu- 
tion, various schemes of philanthropy engaged his attention. 
He also visited with distinguished honours the Courts of Joseph 
II. and Frederic the Great. That sagacious veteran, who 
knew what it was to fight against odds ; having dealt, single- 
handed, with four capital powers at once, besides " a rabble of 
German States;" expressed the highest admiration of Washing- 
ton and of the firmness with which the American contest had 
been conducted. In '84 Lafayette revisited the land of his 
adoption ; where peace and security were now established, and 
where blessings greeted him at every step : on this occasion he 
took a last leave of the Father of his country. 

Troublous signs began now to appear in France. No direct 
agency is ascribed to Lafayette in the preliminary movements of 
the Revolution ; though it is not improbable that his heroic de- 
votion to liberty, as it caused a thrill of admiration through 
Europe, may have diffused some kindred sentiments. If such 
be to any considerable extent the fact, it proves the preparation 
of the public mind by other causes. Indeed they had been 
long accumulating — they lay deep and festering — they were 
connected with old abuses and corruptions — oppressive feudal 
laws — absurd usages — unjust exemptions — immunities from tax- 
ation by the very orders who had acquired the fee-simple of 
the soil. Degradation and suffering had been deepening from 
reign to reign ; — dissatisfaction was at last becoming universal ; 
— discontent finding a tongue ; — the vials of wrath drop by 
drop Avere approaching the brim. Yet, heretofore, few exter- 
nal tokens indicated the unstable foundations on which the 
monarchy was resting. A people accustomed to suffer is pa- 
tient ; and without instruction or a press has no means of com- 
paring grievances, and uniting for redress. Had a firmer or a 
wiser prince governed at the time, the catastrophe might per- 
haps have been postponed. 

But bloody as it was— dreadful as its accompaniments — diabol- 
ical as many of its agents, — inexorable and enduring as the des- 



15 

potism which followed — perjured and apostate as the coalition 
which has succeeded that despotism over much of Europe, — 
disastrous as all these things are admitted to be, the French 
Revolution conferred blessings on the old world which no price 
could purchase back again, which no obliterated catalogue of 
past sufferings would tempt freemen or Frenchmen to resign. 
What ! the soil of a kingdom portioned out among untaxed No- 
bles and Clergy ! — the Yeomanry of a nation tilling the ground 
they do not own, and then supplying from their hard-earned pit- 
tance in the form of taxes wherewithal to support the extrava- 
gance of a wasteful government — leaving untaxed a numerous 
and profligate aristocracy, and an unprofitable clergy ! — a. people 
dwelling in wretched cottages which they are not so happy as 
to own — sweating over a landlord's furrough — their children 
coarsely fed, and growing up in ignorance, — that gaiety, idle- 
ness, and extravagance may fill the chateaus of the provinces, 
and that palaces may rise at the bidding of the sovereign trans- 
cending the splendour of Eastern fiction 1 

Be not misled by the writers of a nation, kindred to ourselves, 
who fear change ; nor dazzled by the eloquence of one who 
might have formed more dispassionate opinions had a breadth 
of ocean or of time been interposed between him and the phe- 
nomenon he execrated. Ask your own hearts what price is too 
dear to pay for the overthrow of the abuses just enumerated ; 
or what treasure of blood, even, too abundant to exchange for 
equal rights, — equal taxes, — for free-hold farms, — a free press, 
— for trial by jury, — for the absence of privileged orders, — for 
the instruction of the poor, — for the right of withholding sup- 
plies — for a constitutional, representative government, no mat- 
ter under what name ? — These are the blesssings on which La- 
fayette fixed his eyes at the beginning of that great drama, 
and on which he kept them steadfast through its unparalleled 
changes. 

A bankrupt treasury was the immediate occasion of the over- 
throw of the French monarchy. Unable to conduct the gov- 
ernment without money, and thwarted in every effort to obtain 



16 

it, Louis, after much hesitation and perplexity, convened, in 
1787, the first Assembly of the Notables. Instead of showing 
themselves subservient to the views of the Minister of Finance, 
by whose advice they were called together, and voting, under 
the decent forms of a discussion, the registry of the immense 
loans he proposed, they disputed his statements, opposed his 
plans, and assailed his character. Lafayette was a member of 
this body, and at this early date, demanded sundry humane re- 
forms, and made a formal call, which no man seconded, for the 
convocation of a National Assembly. 

Appearing now on a new theatre, he at once found the ad- 
vantage of his heroic apprenticeship in America. . The emo- 
tions of Liberty were not now first swelling in his bosom : en- 
thusiasm had had time to throw off its froth ; immature opinions 
to ripen : he accordingly came into the first French assemblies, 
at thirty two years of age, with the dignity of a matriculated 
freeman. The calmness of formed opinions, the decision of a 
practical judgment, the moderation of a humane reformer, gave 
to his views a marked authority. And had not the blindness of 
the French court been past cure, and the bondage of the nation 
so abject, and their sufferings so prolonged and bitter, that an 
inebriation of frantic joy seems to have been inevitable on the 
rupture of their shackles, his influence with both might have 
spared them some lessons which it is to be hoped the world will 
not have a second time to learn. 

The dissolution of the first Assembly of Notables was not 
long delayed ; the convocation of the second ; the subsequent 
assembling of the States General, — a body composed of repre- 
sentatives from the nobles, clergy, and people ; — their con- 
tests ; — and the victory of the popular branch, by whose influ- 
ence the three estates were merged in one promiscuous cham- 
ber, which declared itself, under the title of the National As- 
sembly, the sole representative of the people ; — these, and other 
movements of that day of perplexity and change, can only be 
alluded to. 



17 

The success of the American cause, perhaps, inspired La- 
fayette with more sanguine anticipations as to the regeneration 
of France. He knew the practicable union of Liberty and 
Law : his mental eye beheld that most beautiful of the works 
of man, a Free Constitution — and he no doubt ardently coveted 
for France the inestimable boon. How soon it became appa- 
rent to him, that the ignorance and corruption of the lower or- 
ders, and the sinister purposes of their leaders, were jeoparding 
the hopes of all good men, is, on our part, conjectural. But he 
who sat on the same benches with Mirabeau ; who knew his 
life ; and was daily witness of his amazing sagacity and domi- 
neering eloquence, could not but be aware of danger from such 
a colleague : — It was not possible for a judge of human nature 
to see such individuals as Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, rising 
into influence on the seats of the Jacobins, without inward mis- 
givings : — or to know, without deep apprehensions, that the 
Duke of Orleans was near ; prepared by his wealth and wicked- 
ness, to pension the most abandoned agents, and abet the black- 
est conspiracies. Once, the resistless influence of Lafayette 
expelled this incendiary from the kingdom, but he soon re- 
appeared on a scene so congenial. Contrasted with such char- 
acters, how pure a radiance surrounds the name we are met to 
honour. Amidst their wild theories, endless intrigues, self- 
seeking ambition, perjury, treachery, and blood, — their dark 
cabals and hydra-headed clubs, he moves like a being left to 
preserve the resemblance of wisdom and goodness from perish- 
ing from among a fated people. 

From the outset, he justly appreciated the changes needful 
to his country, and suited to her genius. He opposed absolute 
monarchists on one hand, and republicans and Jacobins on the 
other. He decided that a monarchy, rendered harmless by free 
institutions, was the government best adapted to the French. 
This opinion he supported through every change, till its final 
establishment in 1830, by a second revolution, as honorable as 
the first was revolting. A striking testimony to his sagacity is 

3 



18 

furnished by part of a letter addressed to him, as late as 1815, 
by Mr. Jefferson. 

Referring to opinions of his own, expressed in the beginning 
of the revolution, he says to Lafayette : — " You thought other- 
wise, and I found you were right. Unfortunately, some of the 
most honest and enlightened of our patriotic friends did not weigh 
the hazards of a transition from one form of government to an- 
other ; — the value of what they had already rescued from those 
hazards, and might hold in security, if they pleased ; — nor the 
imprudence of giving up the certainty of such a degree of lib- 
erty under a limited monarch, for the uncertainty of a little more 
under the form of a republic. You differed from them ; you 
were for stopping there, and for securing the Constitution which 
the National Assembly had obtained. Here, too, you were 
right; and from this fatal error of the Republicans, and the 
Constitutionalists in their councils, flowed all the subsequent 
sufferings and crimes of the French nation.' 5 

That Lafayette could not control, and direct to happy ends 
the dangerous elements let loose, is not strange, — it would have 
been miraculous could he have done so. For there were as- 
sembled provincial nobles, jealous of each other, and of the 
more elevated orders — lawyers bent on becoming judges — infe- 
rior members of the church looking askance at the mitre — aspi- 
ring, men of the tiers etat determined no longer to be kept 
down — closet politicians and conceited theorists broaching novel 
doctrines with each returning day, and supporting every species 
of impracticable absurdity. But on the other hand, the influ- 
ence which he actually exercised with all parties through the 
two years' sitting of the First, or Constituent Assembly, (meaning 
that which established the Constitution,) and afterwards with 
the second, or Legislative Assembly, till the Jacobins obtained 
the ascendancy, and the reign of terror began, is a memorable 
exhibition of the power of virtue. A republican and reformer, he 
was trusted by the King ; — an inflexible friend and supporter of 
the King within constitutional limits, he was trusted by the 
people ; — the bitter enemy of misrule, he was worshipped by 



19 

the mob ; — contemning and curbing the sans culottes, and the 
emissaries of the Jacobins — down even to the time of his last 
daring solitary visit to Paris to denounce these miscreants, — his 
popularity was such that a tree of liberty adorned with laurels 
and garlands was planted before the door of his Hotel. His 
opinions had a primary influence in shaping the constitution ; 
his Declaration of Rights was the basis of that adopted : he was 
regarded as the eldest son of Liberty ; and he disseminated 
ideas, which, though buried for a time, under the ruins of the 
constitution and laws, have lain, like seeds deep-hidden in the 
earth, to attain to after fruitfulness. 

His most essential service, however, to his fellow citizens of 
that day, was the preservation of order in the capital. The 
Assembly, finding- requisite some military counterpoise to 
the royal troops, chose him, with the King's approbation, 
commander of the civic guard. He was soon afterwards made 
Commandant of the Parisian division of the National Guard, 
a force (somewhat like a militia) regularly instituted and armed 
throughout the kingdom pursuant to his advice. The old white, 
joined to blue and red, the colours of the city, were adopted as 
their symbol. Addressing the Assembly on the subject of this 
new establishment, he uttered these remarkable words. — " Gen- 
tlemen, I bring you a cockade which shall make the tour of the 
world ; and an institution, at once civic and military, which shall 
change the system of European tactics, and reduce all absolute 
governments to the alternative of being beaten if they do not 
adopt it,^or of being overthrown if they do." 

Idolized by this national military composed chiefly of re- 
spectable and substantial citizens zealous to repress licentious- 
ness, he was for two years the absolute master of Paris. His 
influence alone made her streets safe at noonday, and secured 
each returning night from the perpetration of frightful tragedies. 
During this period of wild fermentation when all the ancient 
institutions of the monarchy, crown, mitre, and coronet, rooted 
prejudices, and reverenced customs, were cast into the crucible 
of the Assembly to undergo a transformation into forms of the- 



20 

oretic beauty ; Lafayette succeeded in preserving the domestic 
sanctuary from violence, and more than once snatched his unhap- 
py sovereign, and the ill-starred queen from impending butchery. 
That indescribable crusade from Paris to Versailles, composed 
of beings 

" Abominable, inutterable, and worse 
Than fables yet have feigned;" 

has occasioned a writer, not often censurable, to soil the can- 
dour of his own pure page by leaving there a surmise to the 
prejudice of one whose whole life refutes it, and whose interposi- 
tion on this critical occasion unquestionably preserved the Queen. 
Sir Walter Scott had no right to hint at disloyalty, or even 
negligence, on the part of Lafayette, after the unwearied exer- 
tions, and the known facts of that day. The interior posts of 
the palace were not in his charge. To the Swiss and the body 
guard, they were exclusively entrusted ; and through a private 
passage in charge of, and overlooked by the latter, the assassins 
entered. Lafayette solicited of the King for himself and his 
National Guard, the protection of the interior posts also ; but 
the exterior only were assigned him. This is expressly stated 
by the daughter of Neckar, who was on the spot — in the pal- 
ace — participated in the terrors of the night — knew all the 
movements, communications, and instructions of Lafayette, and 
would naturally remember them while memory continued to 
perform her office. " It is therefore absurd," says Madame de 
Stael, " to censure M. Lafayette for an event so unlikely to 
happen. No sooner was he apprised of it than he rushed for- 
ward to the assistance of those who were threatened, with an 
ardour which was acknowledged at the moment — before calum- 
ny had prepared her poison." — But, however generous, or im- 
partial, (and Sir Walter is both,) a British Tory writer is, per- 
haps, as incapable of a hearty sentiment towards Lafayette, as 
of complacency in the laurels of Decatur. 

The King in compliance with the demands of the mob gave 
orders for the immediate removal of the court to Paris, But 
Lafayette apprehensive of danger to the Queen from the armed 



21 

and infuriated rabble who were yet howling every blasphemous 
and obscene execration under the windows of the palace, pro- 
posed to her to appear with him on the balcony. With calm 
dignity she presented herself. Not being able to make himself 
heard, he conceived, says Sarrans, the happy idea of kissing 
the hand of Marie Antoinette. Vive la Reine I — Vive La 
Fayette ! resounded from the multitude. He then led out, and 
embraced one of the Body Guard, whom he had just saved 
from assassination. Vive les Gardes de Corps I echoed from 
the mouths of these consistent reformers. On his return to 
the royal closet, Madame Adelaide the aunt of Louis, embra- 
ced him, and called him the saviour of the King and his family. 
To the time of their deaths the King, Queen, and Madame 
Elizabeth, publicly acknowledged that to Lafayette they were 
indebted, on this memorable occasion, for their lives. — These 
are the statements of an intimate friend and aid-de-camp of 
General Lafayette, who collected the facts from his own lips, 
and his written memoranda. By an American audience, there- 
fore, they will be esteemed of some validity. 

The work of the Constituent Assembly, the Constitution was 
now finished, and the preparations completed for solemnizing 
its adoption. This remarkable scene is, thus, in substance pre- 
sented to vis.* In the immense plain of the Champ de Mars, 
within a vast amphitheatre erected by the personal labour of all 
Paris, and capable of containing 400,000 people, a temple was 
formed by gigantic columns enveloped with ivy and laurel, 
connected by festoons of foliage. In the centre of it was pla- 
ced an altar, and thereupon was laid the Book of the Constitu- 
tion. Here the King, the National Assembly, and the People, 
convened to take an oath to support the revised Constitution, 
and to defend the cause of Liberty. Numbers came up from 
the distant provinces, and from remote parts of Europe as 
spectators of this great Confederation. On the 14th of June, 
1790, the citizens began to assemble at day-break : at a later 

* By Dr. Moore. 



22 

hour the National Guard led by Lafayette, followed by the 
electors of the city of Paris, the members of the municipality, 
the Deputies of the National Assembly, the Deputies from the 
different Departments, a deputation from the army and navy 
headed by the two Marshals of France, proceeded to the spot. 
Their banners and colours were placed round the altar. Two 
hundred Priests dressed in garments of white linen decorated 
with the national-coloured ribbons were stationed on its steps. 
At the head of these, (worthy High Priest of the first Revolu- 
tion !) stood Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, who had been ap- 
pointed to administer the oath of confederation. The King, 
for that day only, had been made supreme and absolute com- 
mander of all the National Guards of France. He delegated 
his authority to Lafayette who thus became, for the time, the 
High Constable of all the armed men of the kingdom. The 
ceremony began by the celebration of mass. Lafayette as the 
representative of the military of the nation first took the oath. 
As he left the foot of the throne, and moved towards the altar, 
the trumpets began to sound, and an innumerable band of 
military music filled the air till he ascended the steps of the 
altar. In view of this immense concourse he laid the point of 
his sword upon the Bible which was on the table of the altar, 
and raising his other hand towards the sky, the music ceased, 
and a universal stillness succeeded, while he pronounced : " We 
swear to be faithful to the Nation, to the Law and to the King ; 
to maintain, to the utmost of our power, the Constitution de- 
creed by the National Assembly, and accepted by the King." — 
Of the heartless invocations and broken vows which followed 
the oath of Lafayette, we take no account. His pledge was 
ratified in heaven — length of days, wisdom, influence and oc- 
casion, have all been granted. Our Patriot stands unperjured ; 

" Among the faithless, faithful only he." 

After the second acceptance of the constitution by the King, 
in '91, pursuant to its revised decrees, he resigned the command 
of the Parisian National Guard which he had held with such 



23 

signal advantage to the capital, more than two years ; and re- 
tired to his native Auvergne. The Constituent Assembly ceas- 
ed about the same time by a voluntary dissolution. But soon 
after the convening of its successor, the Legislative Assembly, 
he was recalled, and entrusted with one of the three armies 
raised to oppose the coalition. His occupation on the frontiers 
emboldened the Jacobins to more open and daring procedings. 
But though in the camp, his mind was concentrated on their 
nefarious designs against their sovereign, the constitution and 
the laws. He accordingly addressed a letter from his head- 
quarters to the Assembly denouncing the Clubs, and, by name, 
their most dangerous abettors — a measure of extreme boldness ; 
but transcended by a step soon after taken by himself. A pass- 
age only from this letter, shall detain us. 

" Can you conceal from yourselves, gentlemen, that a faction, 
and to avoid vague denunciations, the Jacobin faction, has caus- 
ed all these disorders. I here openly accuse that faction. Or- 
ganized like a separate power, in its source and its ramifications, 
blindly directed by a few ambitious leaders, that sect forms a 
distinct corporation amidst the French People whose power it 
usurps." — " This faction in public sittings styles respect for the 
laws aristocracy, and their infraction patriotism — they pronounce 
eulogies on the assassins of Versailles, and panegyrize the 
crimes of Jourdan." — ■" It is I who denounce this sect ; and 
why should I longer delay to fulfill this duty, when the power 
of the constituted authority is daily diminishing, when party 
spirit is substituted for the will of the people, and when the 
boldness of agitators imposes silence on the peaceful portion of 
the citizens." — "Let the reign of the Clubs be annihilated 
by the reign of the law, — their usurpations by the firm and 
independent operation of the constituted authorities — their dis- 
organizing maxims by the true principles of Liberty — their un- 
bridled fury by the calm and steady courage of a nation who 
knows her rights and can defend them." — Can the mind con- 
ceive more noble and undaunted language under circumstances 
so calculated to suggest caution to any man capable of intimi- 
dation. 



24 

Six days after the date of this letter, the Assembly was in- 
sulted by the irruption of the mob into their very hall ; whence, 
after fraternizing with the terrified members they rushed to the 
Tuilleries, planted a cannon against the gate, and broke into 
the recesses of the palace. The royal family on this occa- 
sion escaped personal injury ; but not the most distressing hu- 
miliation. On receiving intelligence of these outrages, Lafay- 
ette repaired unprotected to Paris — entered almost alone that 
misguided and guilty city — and stood before the bar of the as- 
tonished Assembly. Such resolution awed even the most dar- 
ing Jacobins ; they listened from their mountain benches, in 
dumb amazement, with emotions which demoniac natures can 
best parallel, to the indignant denunciations of the great As- 
sertor of Liberty. , 

" Abash'dthe Devil stood; 
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw 
Virtue in her shape how lovely." 

Part only of his design was yet attempted. He immediately 
sought an interview with the unhappy King, and vainly urged 
every argument to persuade him to escape. His offers of safe- 
guard were repulsed. The Queen declared it would be too 
much again to owe their lives to M. Lafayette. Motives, 
however which they did not disclose probably influenced their 
decision. Disappointed in both his hopes, namely of bringing 
the Assembly to a sense of their duty, and of rescuing the royal 
family, he returned to the frontiers. This effort for the preser- 
vation of his King and country is worthy of comparison with 
his first great resolve in the cause of Freedom ; and few actions 
of equal magnanimity are recorded in history. Scott admits 
courage and disinterestedness in this transaction, but there is no 
unction in his phrase, not a particle of that spontaneous glow 
which would quickly have reminded us of the fiery urn within, 
had he been describing a similar action of the Douglas, or Mac 
Callum More. He admits what cannot be denied ; but it is in 
nullifying language. — Such is human nature. — It is proof of 



25 

what I before asserted. — And such will continue to be the treat- 
ment of all we love and honour, till we recount our own deeds to 
the sweeping of our own lyre. 

The Jacobin ascendancy was now becoming supreme, and 
the dreadful 10th of August finally established that terrific pop- 
ular Tyranny. Safety and humanity were no more. Septem- 
ber came, that bloody September ! — But gladly over the ensu- 
ing scenes we leave the veil. 

The sound of the tocsin, or the voice of sympathy could no 
longer reach Lafayette. The constitution overthrown, himself 
denounced, commissioners for his arrest in the camp, fear and 
disaffection spreading among his own troops, he saw no alter- 
native but an unprofitable death or exile. After posting his ar- 
my in an advantageous position, and announcing the disastrous 
state of things, he retired with a few friends, with the intention 
of reaching Holland. The particulars of his arrest and illegal 
imprisonment must not detain us. We all know something of 
Austrian dungeons, whose actual details are not surpassed by 
the blood-curdling records of the Inquisition.* It would baffle 
Dante himself to place an innocent sufferer in circumstances 
more calculated to break his spirit if not subdue his virtue. — 
The voice of the artillery, the gathering of the strife, the 
shouts, the groans, the ghastly spectacles, which signalize death's 
mightier banquets are held terrible and trying to the heart 
of man. Yet thousands covet the joy of battle ; and youthful 
frames have bid defiance to the thumb-screw and the rack. 
But few have sustained, unsubdued, long solitary imprisonment. 
No human smile — no human voice — no intelligence from the 
external world — the sun shut out — the waxing and the waning 
seasons unperceived — the yearning of the tenderest sympathies 

* They who are solicitous to be more fully instructed on this topic, are re- 
ferred to a most interesting work entitled "My Prisons," by Silvio Pellico ; 
a new translation of which, with additions by Maroncelli, is now about to 
be published in Boston, under able superintendence, and in a more perfect 
form; for the benefit of Signor Maroncelli — a poet, scholar, and grievous 
fellow-sufierer, who has taken refuge in the United States. 

4 



26 

unsatisfied — all a blank. Constrain the wretched prisoner, 
moreover, to say : To me, " hope never comes, that comes to 
all," and you have completed human woe. To the utmost of 
their power, the merciless violaters of the Laws of Nations who 
imprisoned Lafayette fulfilled this category. When he was 
consigned to his dungeon, six by ten, in the castle of the Jes- 
uits, with walls twelve feet thick, he was deliberately informed 
that he would never more see any thing but the four walls of 
his prison, — that he would never again hear a human voice^ — 
and that he would be designated in dispatches to Government 
only by the number of his cell. 

Are these the tender mercies of despotism ? — Utter this to a 
fellow creature ! — who had violated no sanctuary, butchered no 
babes ! — Come ! O come ! ye who abuse the blessings of Lib- 
erty — and You, Unbelievers in all that is holy, and noble, and 
disinterested in the soul of man — you who deride principle — 
and deny in your hearts the existence of virtue — Come, and 
see the adopted son of Washington in his dungeon at Olmutz. I 
— Do you behold him ? — A bed of straw, a table and a chair, 
are all his accommodations. He is young, but his hair has fallen 
out with sufFering — he is weak, emaciated, and wan — he has 
pined there two years — he knows not whether his wife and 
children are in the abodes of the living — he sees no friend — he 

hears no voice ! What upholds him ? — What prevents heart 

and flesh from failing utterly ? 

There, in secrecy and mystery, the place of his confinement 
long unknown, and his very existence a problem, he remained 
from '93 to '97. When his situation was disclosed, generous 
men, every where, felt commiseration. Washington appealed 
— Jews advanced money — Strangers risked their lives for his 
escape. Yet in the British House of Commons, on the motion 
of General Fitzpatrick for an enquiry into his case, with a view 
to the interference of Government for his release, Mr. Pitt de- 
nied that Lafayette was ever the real friend of liberty, and de- 
clared his detention no infraction of the law of nations, and op- 
posed the motion as improper and unnecessary. Burke equally 



27 

resisted it, denounced Lafayette as the author of all the mis- 
eries that had befallen France, and ridiculed interference in his 
behalf. The answer of Fox is worthy of a brazen tablet ; but 
it was unavailing. — It was not till the expiration of half his cap- 
tivity, that Madame Lafayette and his daughters found their way 
to him. Their presence could only be called the joy of grief; 
for who could witness the sepulture of the living objects of his 
affection without new and excruciating anguish. 

Kidnapped by this same Austria, the Lion-Richard, for two 
years, beat his great heart against the bars of his dungeon, 
and might have mouldered there, — while his people were in- 
voking every Saint to reveal his hermitage or his tomb, — had 
he not found in his faithful Blondel, a Bollman and Huger. 

This sad epoch is reviewed by us with a strange delight, as the 
last proof of firmness of mind, and also because it imparts to 
one whom we before regarded with grateful love, a portion of 
the martyr's sanctity. If he would have recanted his Bill of 
Rights, if he would liave joined the Royalists against France, 
he might at any moment have been free. — Here, let those, if 
such there be, who, for trivial considerations, abjure their con- 
victions, pause, and wonder ! Let such remember, too, that he, 
who for the paltry prize of office, becomes the advocate of men 
or measures, disapproved by his conscience, is, virtually, in 
arms against his country. — All-seeing Providence alone can 
tell, how far this last test of his incorruptible spirit was requisite 
to enable him, afterwards, to absorb, and concentrate the whole 
power of France, in the crisis of '30, and thus finally to lay the 
corner stone of her liberties. 

But while he lay immured, the victim of ungenerous Despots, 
a name was rising soon to prove troublesome to their slumbers. 
The vulgar crimes, and mean tyranny we have been contem- 
plating do somewhat towards reconciling us to the ascendancy 
of this king of kings. Difficult as it is to avoid diverging to 
such a theme, we must refrain from any notice of the era of Na- 
poleon. Suffice it to say, this was the day of wonders — as- 
tonishing history, distancing fiction— this the name, which haunt- 



28' 

ed the peace of thrones — the hand, that weighed them in the 
balances and divided their ancient Borders — the Captain — the 
Lawgiver — the terrible Agent who almost fulfilled, with his tri- 
colored banner, the prophecy we have recited ; — • 

" Whose slightest motions fill'd the world with tidings, 
Waked he or slept, Fame watch'd the important hour, 
And nations told it round." 

To his interposition, Lafayette owed his liberty : for though 
in '96 the first of British Statesmen ridiculed interference in his 
behalf, not so thought repentant France in '97. His release, 
and that of his fellow sufferers was, by the Directory, made 
an express stipulation in the treaty of Campo Formio. Irri- 
tated with the equivocations of the Imperial minister, Bona- 
parte, at length, despatched a former aid-de-camp of Lafayette's 
with this intelligible message to the Emperor : — that if the pris- 
on doors of General Lafayette were not open in one month from 
the date of the demand, himself and the army of Italy would 
appear before Vienna and unbar them for him. 

Instantly after the establishment of the provisional Consulate, 
Lafayette, who had resided two years in Holstein, returned to 
France, and settled himself at La Grange — informing the Con- 
suls, that since they once more professed the principles of '89 
his place was in France. But all the attempts of Bonaparte to 
attach him to his Government were unsuccessful ; though he 
ever acknowledged most gratefully his obligations to the Com- 
mander of the army of Italy. A seat in the Senate with thirty 
six thousand francs per annum, and the dignity of Count of the 
Empire with eighteen thousand more, were pressed upon him, 
and declined ; though now reduced by confiscations, and by a 
long course of sacrifices in the cause of Liberty to a meagre 
sufficiency. Had past events thrown no light upon his charac- 
ter, the all-seeing eyes of the First Consul must have speedily 
discerned the impracticability of winning such a man from his 
political convictions. Accordingly, after the frank exposition 
of his views, when called upon to vote the consulate for life, 



29 

no further propositions were made him. How many among 
even sincere patriots would have said : It is enough : — I have 
striven, sacrificed, suffered : — age is advancing — poverty near — 
can I overrule events ? Shall I utterly sacrifice myself and my 
children to the still-receding hope of Liberty ? — to a consisten- 
cy which the selfish ridicule, and which even good men may 
think extreme ? — But this fresh proof of the reality of his prin- 
ciples was not thrown away. 

To the forgotten solitudes of La Grange he seemed now con- 
signed for the residue of his days. There, he watched the ac- 
cumulation of power by the French Ruler ; saw the Consulship 
develope itself into the magnificent pageant of the Empire, 
whose borders — still advancing — left the Rhine, the Pyrenees, 
and the Alps behind. Austerlitz — Jena — Friedland — Wa- 
gram — made no changes in the patriarchal hall of Lafayette ; 
except after the peace of Tilsit, restoring to him his son, who 
had till then served faithfully in the French armies, but against 
whose promotion the resentful Emperor was inflexible. 

We may imagine him, during these years, occasionally turn- 
ing, like Israel from Goshen, a meek but hopeful eye towards 
his far off Promised Land of Liberty ; in the ultimate attain- 
ment of which, says Madame de Stael, " his confidence is the 
same as that of a pious man in a future state." An affecting 
proof of this assertion is presented by his answer to the solicita- 
tions of Mr. Jefferson, in 1804, to accept the provisional gov- 
ernment of Louisiana. " Your proposition," replied Lafayette, 
"offers all the advantages of dignity, wealth, and security ; and 
I do not feel less warmly than I have done these thirty years, 
the desire of advancing with American liberty, in its progress 
over all the continent. But you, my dear friend, you also know 
and share my wishes for French, and consequently for European 
liberty. In America the cause of mankind is gained and se- 
cured. Nothing can arrest, change, or sully its progress. Here 
all is as lost, and without hope.* But for me to pronounce that 

* Bonaparte having become Emperor the same year. 



30 

sentence — to proclaim it, as it were, by a final expatriation — 
would be a concession so contrary to my sanguine nature, that 
unless I were absolutely forced, I know not the land, however 
disadvantageous, and still less can I imagine the hope, however 
unpromising, which I could totally and irrevocably abandon. 
When I consider the prodigious influence of French doctrines 
upon the future destinies of the world, I think it will not be 
right in me — one of the promoters of that revolution — to admit 
the impossibility of beholding it, even in our time, re-established 
on its true basis — that of a generous, a virtuous, in a word, an 
American liberty." 

While Europe was divided between astonishment and dismay, 
to see her ancient regal institutions, and her capital cities, top- 
pling before the trumpets of Napoleon ; and the eyes of the 
rest of mankind were aching in the attempt to pursue his eagles ; 
the Veteran of Liberty gradually faded and disappeared from 
the thoughts of men. He was canonized in our memories with 
Washington, and our habitual feelings scarcely recognized their 
existence in separate worlds. But, at last, when the wheels of 
the Man of Destiny began to wax weary, and his adamantine 
heart to show signs of human faintness ; — when driven in upon 
the vital point of his dominions ; with innumerable and vindic- 
tive foes menacing not only the capital, but endangering the in- 
dependence, itself, of France— who did not start, when amidst 
the Imperial Dukes and Marshals, like the risen Spirit of the 
Constituent Assembly, appeared the long-forgotten form of La- 
fayette ? How thrilling in our ears sounded his voice, pronoun- 
cing, — " Here must your course be stayed : Laws, and Rights, 
and Charters here begin. Duty now commands us to surround 
the tri-coloured standard of '89, the standard of liberty, equal- 
ity, and public order." 

His speech and propositions, in the face of death, on the 
fourth day after the battle of Waterloo, are admitted to have 
sealed the doom of Bonaparte ; and cotemporary accounts 
affirm, that when the Emperor heard Lafayette was in the 
Tribune, his agitation "gave signs that all was lost." Lucien, 



31 

in behalf of his brother, entreated, and appealed to their love of 
glory, their fidelity, their recent oaths. Lafayette replied, — 
"We have been faithful — we have followed your brother to the 
sands of Egypt — to the snows of Russia ; — the bones of French- 
men, scattered in every region, attest our fidelity. We will trust 
him no longer — we will ourselves undertake the salvation of our 
country." 

But the day of liberation was not yet come. The Allies were 
masters of France, and arbiters in an order of things still repug- 
nant to the principles of her truest friend ; and the shades of 
his retirement again received him. Thence the solicitations of 
the American government and people drew him, for a brief but 
brilliant period. We all remember 1824. Who did not feel 
himself, after the transactions of that year, not simply happier, 
but a worthier citizen of a worthier government ? Probably 
Europe herself never looked with more complacency on her 
illustrious citizen, than when he returned, like the Lawgiver 
from the Mount, with the collected glory of America in his 
countenance. 

In the interim between his return to France, and the occur- 
rences which terminated the reign of Charles, he was a mem- 
ber of the representative chamber ; and if ever Adams, Wash- 
ington, Hamilton, or Jay, manfully asserted human rights, in 
that tribune did Lafayette, year after year, stand up their able, 
persevering, perspicacious, undaunted advocate. I was not 
aware, till the present occasion called for the investigation, how 
resolute, constant, and foreseeing were his efforts. No internal 
abandonment, no external neglect, that militated against the 
glorious principles which he believed, and we believe, must ul- 
timately prevail, escaped his reprehension. The extension of 
suffrage, the instruction of the lower orders, an untrammelled 
press, an extension of the privilege of jury, — the meanness and 
impolicy of refusing assent to South American independence, 
bitter denunciations of the crusade against the Spanish Cortes, 
contemptuous sarcasms on half-way measures for the establish- 
ment of Greece, execrations on peace or pact with the crowned 



32 

Assassin of Portugal — these, are some of the themes with which 
that hall resounded. All these interests, all these nations, have 
reached, or are rapidly attaining, the position he desired for them. 

His voice was not unheard or unfelt through France ; though 
the blindness of predestined ruin seemed to have, fallen on her 
Rulers. The appointment of the last ministry gave a note of 
warning; the publication, by that ministry, of the ordonnances 
of 1830, in utter violation of the Charter, formed a crisis which, 
during three days, drenched the streets of Paris with revolution- 
ary blood. But these were honourable stains ; drops which New 
England might have shed. 

Did we not, my countrymen, when parting with Lafayette, 
feel as if tendering our grateful homage to a veteran whose day 
of usefulness was past ? Which of us supposed that his great 
hour was yet in store ? But Providence was reserving him for 
a ripened time ; — and then enabled him, by the mere force of 
personal influence, to bestow on France the object of all his 
sufferings, toils, and vows ; — placed in his hand the crown of 
Capet, and gave to his mouth such final efficacy, that when he 
said to Louis Philippe, " Be thou a Constitutional King," — 
then, and not till then, the nation, with a solemn unity, answered. 
Amen ! 

These are facts which you can all verify, and which must not 
be accepted as pardonable embellishments. At the moment 
when the insurrection became victorious, when the Bourbon 
was unseated, and the throne — as a bauble, or as a prize — was 
at the mercy of roused and clashing parties — then, along with 
the fears of anarchy, came recollections of that Friend, whom 
none ever sorrowed for having trusted. As if by necromancy, 
the National Guard started into being, and planted their stan- 
dards round Lafayette. Once more, as on the great day of the 
Federation, he suddenly found himself at the head of the whole 
military of the kingdom. Gladly would we particularize, glad- 
ly adduce proofs, which are abundant, and at hand. It would 
be easy to show you the French people, like men come to their 
riffht minds, standing before him, in the attitude of filial rever- 



33 

ence ; and heaping upon him, as if in expiation of their former 
abandonment, every honour, trust, and token. Many came to 
him in the interval, ere the establishment of the government, 
and entreated him to assume the reins. The men of the three 
days, with their swords smoking in their hands, besought and 
besieged him to be their president — now to found their long- 
desired, long-despaired of Republic. Here, as ever, his firm 
convictions were proof against mere popular desire, as well as 
the temptation of personal aggrandizement. We could show 
you the great fundamental principles which he made sure of, 
while the power was in his hand. We could enumerate those 
rights and privileges which he summed up in the phrase, " A. 
•popular throne surrounded by republican institutions" — which 
he pledged himself to the yet agitated and undecided chiefs to 
obtain for them— and did obtain — as guaranties which the Revo- 
lution had a right to exact. 

No particular allusion is necessary to the course of politics 
under the new government. Differences of opinion are insepa- 
rable from free institutions, and Lafayette was too wise to dream 
of gratitude from politicians. He must have anticipated jeal- 
ousies ; and after having insured the great objects, he hastened 
to retire from his pre-eminence ; but not from his humbler sta- 
tion as a watchman in the chamber of representatives. There 
he remained, with his hand upon the charter, neither to be se- 
duced, persuaded, nor deceived — dragging into the clear light 
of common sense and morality, every threatened abandonment 
of solemn pledges ; and bringing to bear on the rags and rem- 
nants of old prejudices and arbitrary principles, the destructive 
focus of constitutional illumination. 

It may be just noticed as we pass, that at the breaking out 
of the insurrection in Brussels, the Belgian Deputies succes- 
sively tendered him the presidency and the crown. These 
overtures were treated by him with grateful respect. But he 
advised them to choose the head of their government from 
among their fellow citizens ; and declared, for himself, that he 

5 



34 

believed his presence in France more useful to foreign liberty 
than it could be elsewhere. 

This is the man whom some have called feeble — some dan- 
gerous — whose sincere attachment to liberty Pitt denied ; whom 
Burke accused of all the calamities of France ; whom Metter- 
nich, Miguel, and others less consistent, reviled to the last hour 
of his life, and would defraud of the honours inseparable from 
his memory. The First Consul uttered sometimes emphatic 
truths. He once said to Lafayette : " The Despots hate us 
all, but the hatred they bear me is nothing compared to that 
they bear you." 

That high proof of attachment to principles — the disregard of 
forms — was strikingly manifested by Lafayette. He was ex- 
posed among us to become fanatically republican — to confound 
the form with the essence — like some of our spiritual friends, to 
stickle for the Hierarchy rather than for God. But he saw the 
real necessities of his country, and, in the spirit of christian phi- 
lanthropy, laboured to supply them with the least practicable 
hazard. A reformer less attached to liberty would have ac- 
cepted nothing short of a Republic : he refused to abandon the 
Monarchy. 

Yet the philosophical Burke, whose mind could dart forward 
and backward with so sublime a ken, overlooking the long 
course of tyranny, prodigality, and vice, which had corrupted, 
beggared and maddened the French people, lays on the head 
of Lafayette the crimes of the Revolution. If fiction is poetry, 
here are claims ! No splendour of talent, no bursts of chival- 
rous feeling over the sufferings of royalty and beauty, should 
seduce us to pardon assertions so unfounded, prejudices so mon- 
strous. — Why have all nations who love the name of freedom, 
naturalized him, and set up his image among their household 
gods ? — Let him who dare, pronounce his condemnation in the 
mountain fastness of the Greek — or in the market place of War- 
saw. When Poland, who had, for years, sent out her sons to 
bleed in battles of Napoleon, on the bare hope of being recom- 
penced with independence ; encouraged by the example, and 



35 

decided by the language of France, drew out her bruised buck- 
ler, and displayed, once more, her emblem, to whom did she 
cry ? to whom did she stretch her hands for aid ? And when 
those hordes, nameless and accursed, were gathering round her 
falling banner and her dying struggles, whose voice rang through 
the French Chambers louder than the shriek of Cassandra, in- 
cessant and unsparing as the outcry of a prophet — War ! war ! — 
for the preservation of a betrayed and gallant people, for the 
redemption of our plighted faith, for a barrier between ourselves 
and the Barbarians of the North. — The charges to which we 
have been alluding, are among those signal falsities which 
Statesmen, to serve their purpose or their party, sometimes 
dare to utter. 

Let me not, by these remarks, fall under the suspicion of in- 
tending disrespect to England, or her illustrious men. Such a 
motive is earnestly abjured. She is our Parent : — her cliffs 
guarded our Ark and Candlestick : — and were she not — we 
would not disparage that marvellous Island, whose power stands 
on its narrow base like an inverted Pyramid ; whose grapples 
take hold at the four winds ; and whose battle-ships collect like 
the monsters of the Deep. But that energetic nation has been 
obliged to acknowledge us to be " bone of her bone ;" and in 
arriving at that conviction, events have happened grating to her 
pride. She has been our mistress and superior; we have be- 
come her emancipated equal : — Profiting by her history and 
laws, we have constructed a system, varying from hers, but be- 
lieved by many to be better adapted to the present wants and 
future exigencies of man. Boastful of her freedom, she sud- 
denly beholds a nation, with a broader charter than her own ; 
dominant on the sea, she finds a competitor who challenges 
comparisons ; all-grasping in her commerce, she meets keels 
not surmounted by the cross of St. George in every haven of 
the globe : her own people clamour, and she is compelled to 
reform after our model : they forsake her, and our bosom is 
open to receive them. Hence the rancour of that party which 
stands sentinel on her old institutions, and whose business it is 



36 

to cry down the principles and men of an adverse spirit. Hence 
the temper of part of her periodical press, and the derisive 
babbling of her tourists. Were we only philosophical enough 
to apply to nations the individual traits of human nature, instead 
of irritation, all these things would cause complacency ; as 
proofs of the aspect, to transatlantic eyes, of our horoscope, 
whose figures and fortunes those watchful Sages are never 
weary of casting. These considerations borne in mind, might 
serve to rectify our opinions, and our temper, when studying a 
certain class of British writers. But, though self-respect, and 
self-reliance, are laudable and wise, we would not commend to 
imitation those who make a premature vaunt of our institutions, 
and act as if already authorized to state injurious contrasts. — 
When our Constitution shall have been proved by the changes 
of as many centuries ; been buffetted by as many civil commo- 
tions and external wars ; or, when the unknown perils, (what- 
ever they may be,) wrapped up in a thousand years, shall have 
discharged their bolts — if then, our Oak, like the British, bear 
aloft its unscathed head, — let those who sit under its shadow 
look back, and praise the brave and wise who planted, the faith- 
ful and eloquent who defended. We would not speak the lan- 
guage of discouragement, but must acknowledge that a shade 
has fallen on the bright anticipation which once broke from an 
exulting heart when contemplating the work of our fathers and 
founders : 

They were the Watchmen by an Empire's cradle, 
Whose youthful sinews show like Rome's ; 
Whose head tempestuous rears the ice-encrusted cap, 
Sparkling with Polar splendours, while her skirts 
Catch perfumes from the Isles ; whose Trident, yet, 
Must awe in either ocean ; whose strong hand 
Freedom's immortal banner grasps, and waves 
Its starry promise o'er the envying world. 

The province of our day is not to boast, but to be watchful ; — 
severely to measure our public servants by the patterns of a 
purer time ;— -to see that the life of our institutions does not 
perish by a spurious administration of them ; and that we re- 



37 

main not, like blind enthusiasts, with the corpse of the Consti- 
tution in our embraces. Is this the feeling in which we dis- 
charge the duties of our trust ? Are the tests of ability, and 
fidelity, unsparingly applied to public men ? Are party interests, 
state heresies, sectional cabals, and all merely base and selfish 
considerations, trodden under foot, while our eyes are glancing 
forward to the good of all, and upward for the approbation of 
Heaven ? — Without such a spirit we have no right to anticipate 
perpetuity. — Without virtue there cannot be happiness. Is 
there, or is there not, a falling off ? — Does the noble and self- 
sacrificing character of our early day harmonize with the spirit 
of these times ? 

That political virtue is not a phantom, — a mere phrase of 
cabala, for the use of demagogues, — but a reality, powerful, 
and, at last, prevalent in great affairs, is a truth emphatically 
taught by the life of Lafayette ; — and forms its appropriate 
moral. 

Men of greater intellectual force, though none of truer saga- 
city, figured with him on the theatre of Europe. Where are 

they ? — and where is the testimony of their works ? Behold 

the greatest of them all ! — His car is unharnessed — his monu- 
ments are crumbling — his land-marks are removed — his blood 
is extinct : — the hecatombs which strewed his path have, at 
best, served only to prepare the ground for the growth of prin- 
ciples at variance with the whole spirit of his life. 

Finally ; in connection with the future, let us not magnify 
ourselves, but our office — as Pilots, and Discoverers, in seas 
which the Ancient world could never navigate ; let us bear al- 
way in mind, that on our faithful soundings, and constant watch, 
the universal weal depends. Our flag, yet flying in advance 
of the convoy of Nations, is regarded by those who follow, as 
their light and guide : if shallows, rocks, or mutiny, destroy us, 
the region of our stranded wreck is one which no political Co- 
lumbus will dare hereafter to explore. 






NOTE. 



As a sample of the state of things in France, before and after the Revolu- 
tion of '89, take the following passages. 

"Before the Revolution, the land in France was held by various tenures, 
almost all of which were decidedly and extremely unfavourable to agricul- 
ture. The manor rents of the clergy have been variously estimated. Con- 
dorcet, in his Life of Turgot, gives it as his opinion, that the clergy enjoyed 
near a fifth part of the property of the kingdom. Neckar calculated their 
revenue at 130,000,000 livres; but it is probable that their manor rents may 
fairly be estimated to have amounted to about 120,000,000 of livres, or 
4,800,0002. sterling, exclusive of their tithes, which may be rated at about 
3,600,0002. sterling. The domains of the crown and of the princes of the 
blood, rented for about 1,200,0002. sterling; the feudal and honorary dues 
paid to the nobility, with corvies, militia, &c. amounted at least to 5,000,000Z. 
sterling. Besides, the government drew from the produce of agriculture the 
sum of 8,000,0002. sterling. In short, it has been calculated, that, exclusive 
of the rents of land paid to the lay-proprietors, and of the duties of excise, 
consumption, and the like, the produce of the soil was charged annually with 
upwards of 21,000,0002. sterling. 

" But agriculture laboured under disadvantages still more discouraging 
and oppressive previously to the Revolution; to understand and estimate 
which, it will be necessary to consider the different modes of occupying 
land. In the first place, there were the small properties of the peasants." 
These are stated to have been scattered about in a degree hardly to be ex- 
pected, "in the midst of the enormous possessions and oppressive privileges 
of the nobility and clergy," but so minutely divided, that "poverty and mis- 
ery were too visible." 

" The second mode of possessing land was by a money rent." " These 
tenures, upon a moderate estimate, before the Revolution, did not exist in 
more than a sixth or a seventh of the kingdom. 

" Feudal tenures were the third mode of occupying land, and they were 
scattered in a greater or less degree through the whole kingdom. These 
feudal tenures were fiefs granted by the seigneurs of the parishes, under a 
reservation of fines, quit rents, forfeitures, services, &c. As they formed the 
most oppressive evil under which agriculture labored previously to the Revo- 
lution, and from which that event must certainly be allowed the merit of hav- 
ing freed it, it may be proper to notice some of them. Even to enumerate 
the whole of these oppressions would far exceed our limits; and indeed, the 
English language does not supply terms by which many of them can be ex- 
pressed. 

" Among the more mild and tolerable of these feudal tenures, maybe men- 
tioned the obligation the tenant was under, of grinding his corn at the mills 
of the seigneur" only; of pressing his grapes at his press only; of baking his 
bread in his oven. The peasantry in Brittany were obliged to beat the wa- 
ters in marshy districts, to keep the frogs silent, in order that the lady of the 
seigneur, during her lying-in, might not be disturbed by their noise. In 
short, every petty oppression which could render the lives of the peasantry 
miserable, or interfere with the operations of agriculture, was authorised by 
these feudal tenures; though it must be confessed, that, before the Revolu- 
tion, some of the seigneurs, convinced of their injustice as well as impolicy, 
forebore to exact them. Nor were the oppressions of the feudal tenures the 
only ones to which agriculture was exposed. There were numerous edicts 
for preserving the game, which prohibited weeding and hoeing, lest the 
young partridges should be disturbed; steeping seed, lest it should injure the 



39 

game ; manuring with night soil, lest the flavour of the partridges should be 
injured, by feeding on the corn so produced; mowing hay before a certain 
time, (so late as to spoil many crops;) and taking away the stubble, which 
would deprive the birds of shelter. These were oppressions, to which all 
the tenants of land, as well as those who held under feudal tenures, and even 
the proprietors of land, in many cases, were exposed. The latter, indeed, 
were dreadfully tormented by what were called the Capitainries, which, as 
affecting them in some measure, as the feudal tenures affected the farmers, 
may be noticed under this head. By this term was to be understood, the 
paramountship of certain districts, granted by the king to princes of the 
blood, by which they were put in possession of the property of all game, 
even on lands which did not belong to them, and even on manors granted 
long before to individuals ; so that by this paramountship all manorial rights 
were annihilated. The privileges thus conferred, were most grievous and 
oppressive; for by game was understood, whole droves of wild boars, and 
herds of deer not confined, but wandering over the whole couutry, to the 
destruction of the crops; and if any person presumed to kill them, he was 
liable to be sent to the gallies. It may easily be conceived, that the minute 
vexations, as well as the more prominent tyrannies, to which the feudal ten- 
ures gave rise, would occasion frequent disputes between the seigneur and 
his tenants; but the latter preferred submitting to them, rather than appeal- 
ing to the decision of judges, who were absolutely dependant on the seigneurs. 

"We may here also notice the corvics* as one of the taxes peculiarly op- 
pressive and injurious to agriculture, though not confined to the tenure we 
are now considering. By the corvics, individuals were obliged to mend the 
roads by their personal labour; hence it is evident that this tax must have 
fallen exclusively on the poor; or if it was performed by those who kept la- 
bourers, it must have deprived them of the means of fully attending to their 
agricultural operations. This tax was not only impolitic, in so much as it 
placed the repair of the roads under the care of those who were totally des- 
titute of the little skill requisite for such a task, but it was an easy engine of 
oppression ; for, under the pretence that the work might be done without in- 
terruption, those who were liable to the corvde had it frequently allotted to 
them at some leagues from their habitations. Besides these carries, which 
were an oppression to agriculture over the whole of France, there were the 
military corvics, which fell only on the villages lying in the route of the 
troops; the inhabitants of which were obliged to leave their occupation, 
however inconvenient and injurious it might be, and repair the roads along 
which the soldiers were to travel. Such are a few of the oppressions under 
which agriculture in France laboured, previously to the Revolution, arising 
either from the feudal tenures, or from the more general operation of the 
laws and measures of government, the privileges of the nobility and clergy, 
and the usages of the country. 

"The fourth mode of occupying land, resembled that which is common in 
Ireland, and which is there complained of as a great grievance, and as the 
source of much misery and oppression. Men possessed of some property, 
hired great tracts of land at a money rent, and relet it in small divisions to 
metayers, who paid half the produce." 

" The last ten ure was that of the metayer. These are a species of farmers, 
who gradually succeeded the slave cultivatory of ancient times, and who (in 
Latin, called coloni partiarii) have been so long in disuse in England, that 
there is no English name for them. They may be generally described, as 
supplying the labour necessary to cultivate the land, while the proprietor 
furnished them with the seed, cattle, and instruments of husbandry." "Be- 
fore the Revolution, seven eighths of the lands in France were held under 
this tenure;" i. e. under some one of its various forms. "It is scarcely 
necessary to point out the miserable, state of agriculture, where the sys- 
tem of metaying prevails. In the first place, it proves a lamentable defi- 

* Corvee, a service due by a tenant to a landlord. 



40 

ciency of agricultural capital; and in the second, it has a manifest tendency 
to perpetuate this evil, and to keep the tenant in the lowest stale of depen- 
dence, misery, and poverty. In some parts of France, the metayers were 
so poor, and consequently so dependent on their landlords, that they were 
almost e-very year obliged to borrow from them their bread, before the har- 
vest came round. 

" Such were the tenures of land before the Revolution. Let us now en- 
quire what effects that event has produced on them, and on the condition of 
the agricultural class in general. 

" In the first place, the number of small properties have been considerably 
increased in all parts of France. The national domains, which consisted of 
the confiscated estates of the church and emigrant nobility, were exposed to 
sale during the pecuniary distresses of the revolutionary government. For 
the accommodation of the lowest order of purchasers, they were divided into 
small portions, and five years were allowed for completing the payment. In 
consequence of this indulgence, and of the depreciation of assignats, the 
poorest classes of the peasantry were enabled to become proprietors, possess- 
ing from one to ten acres." 

" In the second place, hiring at money rent is much more general since the 
Revolution ; and if France continues quiet, and recovers from the injurious 
consequences of the Revolution, it may reasonably be expected that this spe- 
cies of tenure will become more and more prevalent. 

" In the third place, feudal tenures are done away, as well as tythes, game 
laws, eorvees, &c. In some parts, however, the tenants, by their covenants 
with their landlords, are still bound to perform some services, but by the law, 
they must be entirely of an agricultural description. 

" In the fourth place, the two other species of tenure, that is, monopoly, 
where men of property hired great tracts of land at a money-rent, and relet 
it in small divisions, and the system of metaying, still exist, though not near- 
ly to such an extent, or in such an oppressive and ruinous form, as before the 
Revolution. Indeed, when we consider that these species of tenure were the 
unavoidable and necessary consequences of inadequate agricultural capital, 
we cannot expect that they should be abolished by the mere operation of law, 
or by the direct effects of any revolution, however wisely planned and car- 
ried into execution. If, however, we find that they gradually die away, 
which seems to be the case, we may safely and rationally maintain, that the 
Revolution, besides the direct benefits which it has bestowed on agriculture, 
by the abolition of feudal tenures, and partial and oppressive taxes, has in- 
directly proved advantageous to this first of all arts, by placing in the hands 
of those who pursue it more adequate capital. 

" Such are the benefits which the Revolution has conferred on the agricul- 
ture of France, and which have manifested themselves, notwithstanding the 
military despotism which, after exhausting and weakening her for the pur- 
pose of enslaving the continent of Europe, has at length brought down upon 
her a just retribution for her too ready acquiescence in its schemes. These, 
however, are only partial and temporary evils ; and we may confidently pre- 
dict, that when they are passed away, the agriculture of France, which, from 
her excellent climate and easily worked soil, must always be the staple 
branch of her national industry, and the principal source from which she 
must draw her political influence and military power, will be found to have 
come out from the ordeal purified and refined, and the condition of her agri- 
cultural population in every respect greatly ameliorated." — New Edinburgh 
Encyclopaedia, second American edition, Vol. IX, pp. 405,6,7. 






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